In the list of singers and musicians in the employ of Clemens Augustus, as printed in the Electoral Calendar for the years 1759-60, appears the name, “Ludwig van Beethoven, Bassist.”  We know little of him, and it is but a very probable conjecture that he was a native of Maestricht, in Holland.  That he was more than an ordinary singer is proved by the position he held in the Chapel, and by the applause which he received for his performances as primo basso in certain of Mosigny’s operas.  He was, moreover, a good musician; for he had produced operas of his own composition, with fair success, and, upon the accession of Maximilian Frederick to the Electorate in 1761, he was raised to the position of Kapellmeister.  He was already well advanced in life; for the same record bears the name of his son Johann, a tenor singer.  He died in 1773, and was long afterward described by one who remembered him, as a short, stout-built man, with exceedingly lively eyes, who used to walk with great dignity to and from his dwelling in the Bonngasse, clad in the fashionable red cloak of the time.  Thus, too, he was quite magnificently depicted by the court painter, Radoux, wearing a tasselled cap, and holding a sheet of music-paper in his hand.  His wife—­the Frau Kapellmeisterinn—­born Josepha Poll—­was not a helpmeet for him, being addicted to strong drink, and therefore, during her last years, placed in a convent in Cologne.

The Bonngasse, which runs Rhineward from the lower extremity of the Marktplatz, is, as the epithet gasse implies, not one of the principal streets of Bonn.  Nor is it one of great length, notwithstanding the numbers upon its house-fronts range so high,—­for the houses of the town are numbered in a single series, and not street by street.  In 1770, the centre of the Bonngasse was also a central point for the music and musicians of Bonn.  Kapellmeister Beethoven dwelt in No. 386, and the next house was the abode of the Ries family.  The father was one of the Elector’s chamber musicians; and his son Franz, a youth of fifteen, was already a member of the orchestra, and by his skill upon the violin gave promise of his future excellence.  Thirty years afterward, his son became the pupil of the Beethoven in Vienna.

In No. 515, which is nearly opposite the house of Ries, lived the Salomons.  Two of the sisters were singers in the Court Theatre, and the brother, Johann Peter, was a distinguished violinist.  At a later period he emigrated to London, gained great applause as a virtuoso, established the concerts in which Haydn appeared as composer and director, and was one of the founders of the celebrated London Philharmonic Society.

It is common in Bonn to build two houses, one behind the other, upon the same piece of ground, leaving a small court between them,—­access to that in the rear being obtained through the one which fronts upon the street.  This was the case where the Salomons dwelt, and to the rear house, in November, 1767, Johann van Beethoven brought his newly married wife, Helena Keverich, of Coblentz, widow of Nicolas Laym, a former valet of the Elector.